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07.18.11

Obama Picks Consumer Bureau Leader

Kiichiro Sato / AP Photo

It looks as though Elizabeth Warren will be headed back to Harvard: President Obama has picked Richard Cordray, the former attorney general of Ohio, to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Warren, a law professor at Harvard, led the creation of the agency but was passed over for the official post, The New York Times says, in part for her “outspokenness,” which rankled administration leaders, particularly Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. (Republicans had also vowed to block her nomination.) Cordray already leads the bureau’s enforcement division and earned national attention for his aggressive probes of mortgage-foreclosure practices when he was Ohio attorney general. He too will face a tough confirmation fight: 44 Republican senators have signed a letter demanding the agency be run by a board of directors instead of an individual leader.